Here’s the scoop from the New Orleans Times-Picayune (click HERE for complete article):

BATON ROUGE — The chairman of the state Republican Party said Saturday the state party is looking at ways to prevent “illegal aliens” from being counted in the 2010 federal census. The goal is to preserve a congressional seat for Louisiana, he said.

Roger Villere of Metairie told the Republican State Central Committee, the party’s governing board, that if illegal immigrants are counted in the census, Louisiana likely will see its congressional delegation drop from seven to six House members. House seats are apportioned based on each state’s population in the census.

Villere said states such as Texas and California would pick up representation in Congress because of the large number of immigrants living in them. Federal policy is to count all residents, regardless of their legal status, at the time the census is taken.

“If they do not count the illegal aliens, we would not lose a seat” despite population declines caused by recent hurricanes, Villere said.

“We feel like we need to protect our sovereignty,” he said. “If we take the illegals out of the mix, we could retain one of our congressmen. … We are investigating our options. This is something we are seriously looking at.”

Villere said a decision will be made by year’s end on whether to file a lawsuit or lobby the administration and Congress for a policy change to exclude illegal immigrants. He said he has been in discussions with “people of national stature” on the matter but refused to name them.

“It is not a Republican problem,” he said after the committee’s quarterly meeting. “It is a Louisiana problem.”

Earlier, U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, estimated that 8 million illegal immigrants living in the country are now getting health care paid for by taxpayers.

During the meeting, committee members rejected a plan to hold a nominating convention in Lafayette, Baton Rouge or New Orleans next year to rally the party around one candidate each for a U.S. Senate race and the seven congressional seats.

A convention would energize and unify the party while drawing media attention, according to main proponent Mike Chittom of Baton Rouge.

California’s task of counting all of its citizens just became a wee bit easier. Thanks to the California Endowment, an additional $4 million has been added to the pot of the deficit-stricken state:

LOS ANGELES – (Business Wire) To ensure that every Californian is counted in the 2010 U.S. Census, the state’s largest, private health foundation today announced that it will make $4 million in grants towards a statewide campaign that will promote the importance of participating in the Census, particularly in the large number of “hard to count” communities throughout the state.

“Hard to count” populations are among California’s most vulnerable residents – low-income communities and communities of color.

The federal government makes funding allocations based on population counts from the Census, and for every resident not counted, the state will lose an estimated $11,500 in federal funding over the course of 10 years according to 2009 data from the Brookings Institution.

“At a time when the state is facing declining revenues, it is critical to the people of California that we ensure every resident is counted so we don’t lose out on federal funding essential to the health and well-being of all Californians,” said Robert K. Ross, M.D., president and CEO of The California Endowment.

“If 10 percent of California’s population of 37 million is not counted, the state stands to lose $42.4 billion in federal funding over the next decade,” Ross added.

About one-third of that funding is directly tied to health services, while all of the funding is tied to individual and family well-being which, in turn, is a significant component of health status.

California is home to 10 of the 50 counties in the nation that have been identified as being the hardest to count: Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange, San Bernardino, Fresno, Riverside, Alameda, Sacramento, Kern and San Francisco. These counties are home to large populations that have been historically underrepresented in the Census, including immigrants, people of color, low-income communities, rural areas and those who live in multi-family housing.

@Schwarzenegger has been Tweeting his brains off for many months. Now, he’s making #Census a priority…

Here’s an interesting forecast on redistricting as a result of the 2010 Census from the Wall Street Journal (click HERE for the full piece):

By Stephanie Simon

The federal government has hired tens of thousands of temporary workers to prepare for the 2010 Census — a population count that could remake the political map even as the foreclosure crisis makes it more difficult to account for millions of dislocated Americans.

Early analysis indicates that Texas will likely be the biggest winner since the prior count a decade ago, picking up three or four seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures and Election Data Services Inc., a political-consulting firm. Other states poised to gain at least one seat include Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Florida and Utah.

Population and Representation

• See how states have fared in recent censuses past

Growth in these states is driven by factors including migration from other states, immigration and birth rates. The economic crisis has put the brakes on some of this expansion — Florida just reported its first year-over-year population decline since 1946 — but in general, Sun Belt states have grown faster than others over the past decade.

Since the number of seats in the House is capped at 435, the gains in the South and West have to be offset by losses elsewhere.

New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts and the recession-battered industrial states of Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania each stand to lose a House seat. So does Louisiana, where the population still hasn’t rebounded from Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which displaced so many residents that census takers face a difficult task in tallying them all.

A state’s votes in the presidential Electoral College depend on the size of its congressional delegation, so the census will likely tilt the balance of power slightly, with reliably Republican “red states” gaining several votes while Democratic strongholds such as New England lose clout.

The effect in Congress is less clear, said Karl Eschbach, the Texas state demographer. Texas, for instance, is solidly red when it comes to presidential elections. But Democrats have begun to make inroads in the state Legislature, buoyed by a flow of newcomers from more-liberal states such as California. So political analysts believe one or more of Texas’s new seats in Congress may well translate into a Democratic pickup.

Our friends at Draftfcb sent us the following info:

Aug 26, 2009 15:32 ET

Draftfcb Issues Call for Interested Media Properties Regarding 2010 Census Media Buy

NEW YORK, NY–(Marketwire – August 26, 2009) – Draftfcb announced background and further specifics today for all media properties interested in competing for a piece of the Census 2010 media buy. Draftfcb is the prime contractor for Census 2010 Integrated Communications Campaign.

All media vendors and properties have a fair opportunity to submit their company for consideration for the paid media campaign. Negotiations and commitments for the majority of the buy will not conclude until November 2009 and may continue into 2010. Any interested vendors, must submit their information at the following URL:

http://www.census.gov/procur/www/2010communications

Draftfcb and its partner agencies are looking forward to full and complete competition for this historic campaign. Interested vendors can also find details such as paid media plan summary, campaign phases and media buying timelines at the designated link.

The 2010 Census paid media campaign will be one of the broadest and far-reaching communications efforts undertaken by the U.S. Government. It will include advertising in 28 languages and will employ media such as television, radio, print and digital across the nation, Puerto Rico and U.S. Island Areas. The paid media campaign is part of an overall integrated campaign that includes partnerships, web sites, a Census in Schools program and earned media.

About Draftfcb:

Draftfcb is a modern agency model for clients seeking creative, accountable marketing programs that build business and deliver a high Return on Ideas(SM). With more than 136 years of combined expertise, the company has its roots in both consumer advertising and behavioral, data-driven direct marketing. The agency is the first global, behavior-based, holistic marketing communications organization to operate against a single P&L, and it places equal emphasis on creativity and accountability. The Draftfcb network spans 97 countries, with more than 9,600 employees worldwide, and is part of the Interpublic Group of Companies (NYSE: IPG). The agency’s global corporate leadership team includes Howard Draft, executive chairman; Laurence Boschetto, CEO and president; Jonathan Harries, vice chairman and worldwide chief creative officer; and Neil Miller, CFO. For more information, visit www.draftfcb.com.

Great article from the New Orleans Times Picayune (click HERE for full piece):

The changing face — and faces — of New Orleans

by Sarah Carr, The Times-Picayune

Sunday August 23, 2009, 3:00 PM

The Katrina-imposed exile of New Orleans natives and the influx of newcomers have many wondering if the city’s culture has been permanently diluted or only refreshed with new blood.

John McCusker / The Times-PicayuneNew Orleans native Timolynn Sams and newcomer Gill Benedek stand on Canal Street in New Orleans.

Growing up in Broadmoor, Timolynn Sams traversed the neighborhoods of her hometown by instinct. On bike rides to visit her cousins miles away on Tchoupitoulas Street, or on solitary walks to Hollygrove, she knew exactly which streets were safe and which houses she could stop at to use the bathroom or chat with friends.

Those days are gone. And Sams does not believe the intimate familiarity that defined the New Orleans streetscape will return any time soon.

“I think that’s something we’ve lost, ” she says. “We don’t know where our people are.”

Four years after Hurricane Katrina, encouraging new statistics suggest New Orleans has regained three-quarters of its prestorm population, defying predictions that the city would never again approach its former size.

That statistic, however, masks a subtler shift. The city is now home to a tide of newcomers unprecedented in recent history, including Hispanic day laborers, idealistic young teachers, and urban planners all drawn by the unique opportunity to help a devastated city rebuild, almost from scratch.

H/t to the San Francisco Chronicle:

City Hall takes on the U.S. Census — again!

Squaring off against the U.S. Census is nothing new for City Hall officials – and they’re doing it again this week over the “advanced letter” the census sends all U.S. residents explaining the census questionnaire several weeks before they get the real thing.

Paul Chinn/The Chronicle

In 2000, the advanced letter was sent in a variety of languages including Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese, Korean and Tagalog. But in February, the letter will go out in English only, with Spanish versions included in some census tracts.

That means a lot of San Francisco’s 325,000 residents who speak a language other than English may not understand what to do with the census questionnaire. And that means they may skip it altogether, go uncounted and cause the city to lose out on federal money.

City Attorney Dennis Herrera and David Chiu, president of the Board of Supervisors, have sent a letter to the census asking that it reconsider its policy change. Chiu also introduced legislation at the board calling for an inclusive advanced letter.

The city has a long history of waging battles against the census. In the 1970s, Chinese residents sued over an undercount in Chinatown. In 1990, the city sued over another undercount. In 2000, the city said the census undercounted by a whopping 100,000 people – causing the San Francisco to lose out on $30 million a year in federal funds. (The census compromised, giving the city another 34,209 people.)

Sonny Le, a media specialist with the census, said nothing about the advanced letter has been finalized. We asked him numerous times why the language change had been floated in the first place, and he couldn’t give an answer, only saying it was “a combination of different things.”

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/cityinsider/detail?entry_id=45740#ixzz0OfqBM3GS

The following report from the Associated Press makes us wonder if we are really living in the year 2010 or 1910, as technology continues to elude us and door-to-door interaction is on the rise. Nonetheless, the MyTwoCensus team applauds the decision of Census Director Robert M. Groves to accurately count the residents of New Orleans without succumbing to the partisan interests of New Orleans’ often-controversial mayor, Ray Nagin. Nagin’s call to count former residents of New Orleans who no longer live there as current New Orleans residents is selfish and detrimental for the rest of the country. If former residents were counted as still living in New Orleans, then the municipalities where these people currently reside would not receive the proper federal funding that they deserve and need to compensate for the extra bodies.

Without sounding preachy, if there’s one underlying goal of MyTwoCensus.com, it is to bring more transparency and knowledge about the 2010 Census to the people of the United States of America. One way that we seek to accomplish this goal is by making Freedom of Information Act requests to obtain information that is not available to the public. One such investigation that produced FOIA requests related to the $200 million 2010 Census media contract with Draftfcb, GlobalHue, and other firms involved with the 2010 Census advertising and marketing efforts. We were initially thrilled last Thursday morning when we finally received copies of the information that we requested. However, all is not hunky-dory in Censusland. Out of the 132 pages that were sent to us, 60 pages contained segments that were partially or fully redacted. Thus, our ongoing analysis of this contract will not ever be as complete as it could possibly be. All of this information has been redacted under FOIA clause (b)(4):

Exemption 4

Exemption 4 of the FOIA protects “trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person [that is] privileged or confidential.” ⁽¹⁾ This exemption is intended to protect the interests of both the government and submitters of information. Its very existence encourages submitters to voluntarily furnish useful commercial or financial information to the government and it correspondingly provides the government with an assurance that such information will be reliable. The exemption also affords protection to those submitters who are required to furnish commercial or financial information to the government by safeguarding them from the competitive disadvantages that could result from disclosure. ⁽²⁾ The exemption covers two broad categories of information in federal agency records: (1) trade secrets; and (2) information that is (a) commercial or financial, and (b) obtained from a person, and (c) privileged or confidential.

The below report is a transcript of The Journal Editorial Report that airs on FOXNews and is hosted by Paul Gigot…unfortunately it’s riddled with inaccuracies and fact-check errors. In particular, the Wall Street Journal’s John Fund is full of crap:

Gigot: We’re a little more than six months away from the start of the 2010 census, and if you think the goal is get an accurate count of U.S. citizens, think again. Instead, the Census Bureau is set to count all people physically present in the country, including–that means large numbers who could be here illegally. That could give states with high rates of illegal immigration a big advantage when it comes to reapportioning congressional seats. One big winner, potentially: California, which stands to gain nine more seats in Congress than it would if only U.S. citizens were counted. States like Ohio, Louisiana, Michigan and Pennsylvania could be among the losers.

We’re back with Dan Henninger and John Fund, and Wall Street Journal editorial board member Jason Riley also joins the panel.

All right. John, are the–is the census set to count an awful lot of illegals as part of its count?

Fund: Yes, the Census Bureau says its job is to count everyone in the country–I assume that includes illegal aliens and tourists–and make that part of the census count.

Gigot: Tourists? They’re going to catch them at the airport?

Fund: Or the hotel. The problem is the Census Bureau, for the first time, is not going to be asking on the census form if you’re a citizen, so there’s no way of telling who they’re counting, whether they’re a citizen or not. And I think this is highly dangerous, because the Census was originally designed to count citizens and permanent residents of the United States. In the last 10 years, we’ve had a large increase in illegal immigration. There’s somewhere between 7 million and 12 million illegal aliens in this country. Adding them into the decision about which states get how many House seats really will dramatically change our politics.

Gigot: All right, Jason, do you agree with that?

Riley: No, I don’t. I think the 14th Amendment is pretty clear. It says, quote, “Count the whole number of persons in each state.” There may be residents of these states that are illegal, but they’re still residents, and according to the Constitution, John, they have to be counted. The idea that Census Bureau administrators can arbitrarily decide not to count certain people is legally dubious and probably unconstitutional.

But the second point to make, I think, is that the census is more than just about reapportioning members of Congress. It’s also going to determine federal funds, some $3 trillion in the allocation of federal funds over the next 10 years. Why should border states, who are bearing the brunt of these illegal immigrants, be punished for the federal government’s inability to take care of our illegal immigration problem?

Gigot: He has a point, Dan. I mean, Jason says, look, if the people are in the states and they have to pay for the people who are in these states for services whether they’re illegal or not, they should be allowed to have that counted because they’ll have access to the money.

Henninger: Well, you know, I think, Jason, though, what you’re suggesting is something of an abstraction. As a practical matter, the Census Bureau could–

Gigot: Money isn’t an abstraction.

Henninger: No, but counting people is real. You have to–the census goes out and takes a physical, in-place head count of the sort we were showing in the video on the screen. You don’t mean to think they’re going to go out and knock on the doors where the illegal immigrants live and they’re going to answer the door and say, “Oh, yeah, I’m be happy to fill this census form”–when they’re in hiding? So then it leads you to something we’ve talked about on this program before called statistical sampling, in which you use statistics to sort of estimate how many people are, which is what a lot of groups representing blacks, Hispanics, even Japanese, have wanted the Census Bureau to do. And they’ve resisted for years because it’s just an inaccurate account.

Riley: And the current director says he won’t do that.

Henninger: And this leads to a complete morass if you start trying to count people who are in hiding.

Fund: Paul, and the current Census Bureau director is someone who originally started this sampling process, so he’s very much in favor of it. In addition–

Gigot: But he said–wait a minute, John.

Riley: He said, on the record, that he wouldn’t do it, John.

Gigot: He has said, on the record, that he will not do it.

Fund: As far as I know, and from my sources inside the Census Department, they are preparing to use sampling techniques next year.

Gigot: John, let me ask you about the constitutional argument here. Eugene Volokh, a conservative constitutional scholar, among others, agrees with Jason and says, Look, if you’re going to change and you want to count only citizens, then you’ve got to have to have a constitutional amendment, because the 14th Amendment says what it says.

Fund: Well, what has been done in the past is you’ve had two separate numbers, one that could be used, in theory, to apportion the money that these border states, for example, have to bear costs from illegal aliens, and the other to reapportion the House districts. So I think you can do something that I think preserves the original intent of the Constitution and also takes into account the need for federal money to be allocated fairly.

Gigot: Well, but in terms of the allocation of representation, the small states are already–are overrepresented by population in the Senate, so they do get, regardless of the census count, a fairly good representation in the United States.

Fund: But the distortions are now becoming so large. If California has nine more congressmen and -women than it’s allowed normally, that’s an enormous distortion of our political process. And it’s no longer a small one we can ignore.

Riley: I doubt that nine–that California’s going to get nine more congressman, John, I think other indications show there’s been a lot of outmigration from California and Northeastern states as well.